


The Promise In The Lake

by alezander



Category: Noli Me Tangere & Related Works - José Rizal
Genre: Alternate Ending, Bangka, Chapter 61: The Chase In The Lake, F/M, M/M, Moonlight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alezander/pseuds/alezander
Summary: "Why?"Drifted the voice of the man who sat opposite him. He sounded tired and his words were spoken softly, giving Elias the passing thought that the man could vanish at the faintest touch."So that you can leave the country."Elias responded, facing the silhouette that was Ibarra. The man's back was to the paleness of the full moon, his features hidden by shadows casted."Then come with me. We now share the same fate. Here, we are both wretched. Come with me and we shall live like brothers."





	The Promise In The Lake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juneedes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juneedes/gifts).



> Dear Mr. Rizal sir, I hope you will forgive this piece of ****.

  
  
  
  
"Listen, sir, to the plan that I have worked out. I have a friend who lives in Mandaluyong. We will hide you there while I bring you your wealth which I have buried at the foot of the _balete_ tree, the marker of the tomb of your grandfather."  
  
Elias said this to his sole passenger as he rowed his swift _bangka_ towards the town of San Gabriel. The pilot had been looking at everywhere that was not the man in front of him, away from his unnaturally soiled clothes, his currently slouching back, the absence of idealistic fire in his eyes.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Drifted the voice of the man who sat opposite him. He sounded tired and his words were spoken softly, giving Elias the passing thought that the man could vanish at the faintest touch.  
  
"So that you can leave the country."  
  
Elias responded, facing the silhouette that was Ibarra. The man's back was to the paleness of the full moon, his features hidden by shadows casted.  
  
"Then come with me. We now share the same fate. Here, we are both wretched. Come with me and we shall live like brothers."  
  
Elias could have laughed at Ibarra's proposition. Them, as brothers? The pilot had been denied of a family's warmth by the grandfather of this very man. If Ibarra was making a joke, it was hardly an identifiable one.  
  
But more than that, it was too impossible for Elias to actually live with Crisostomo Ibarra. The man was too _fine_. He spoke the language of fore nations, he was learned of the sciences and the arts, he dressed fashionably and he moved like the dignified youth he was. He was everything that stood in contrast with Elias. Not that the pilot felt insecure about their differences, just that it was too much of a hassle to live with someone from practically a different species.  
  
That, and the fact that Elias somewhat found Ibarra distracting.  
  
Distracting because he had a bunch of expressions that he normally hid but sometimes slipped out when he thought no one was looking. Unlike the nauseating _indios_ who wagged their shameless tails in the presence of Spaniards, Ibarra usually stood his own ground. Admirable, yes, but foolish. Such an unwavering attitude tended to attract malicious treatment from their oppressors, an eventuality that finally unraveled in Ibarra's life. Ibarra stubbornly held a mask over his emotions, but every now and then, an extremely pained expression would seep out, hence the distraction.  
  
To a lawless person such as Elias, seeing a cultured scholar as Ibarra struggling was somewhat _satisfying_.  
  
"I cannot leave the Philippines. I do not posses the papers necessary. Plus I have no credible reason to leave the Philippines and I have no patron for whom I carry his name. The _guardia_ at the border will merely consider me a suspicious character and I will be imprisoned." The pilot said this nonchalantly while his arms continued to row the boat. Then he gave a half-empty smirk as he looked around at the stillness that enveloped them. "Not that staying here would be any different."  
  
Elias thought that with him laying so many contradicting factors, Ibarra would rest his case and give up, but the pilot was to be caught off guard.  
  
"Then I'll be your patron." Said Ibarra with an earnestness that was unprecedented with the many encounters he had had with Elias. Far from actual and honest concern, the pilot caught a glimpse of the silent panic boiling within the scholar given the eternity of loneliness ahead of him. Cut off from his friends, his Maria Clara, the Church and the country he loved dearly, Elias took a step closer to knowing the man Ibarra really was.  
  
And Elias, deep within his calloused soul, felt his body shake because what he saw in the other unconditionally lured him in. Crisostomo Ibarra, just being who he is, was dangerously attractive. Elias realized this and could not help having his eyes gravitating towards Ibarra again and again as the youth looked toward the side at the river lilies, his disposition tired and forlorn.  
  
"If things had been different, if only I am still able, I would not leave. Nothing awaits for me outside this country if I cannot return to it. If I leave, I shall never be able to set foot here again with the name I carry. This Ibarra will die alone."  
  
As he said this Ibarra met the pilot's eyes, and it was apparent what the scholar had wanted to say next but did not.  
  
"Unless I go with you. Are you sure you want me sticking so close for the rest of your life? As you you said, there's no going back once we're out. You'll just have to suck up any complaints you might have."  
  
"I don't find anything to complain about." Ibarra said offhandedly as he looked Elias from his messy hair to his calloused bare feet. "We'll be fine."  
  
"Really? I doubt that is so. See, I have a passionate hate towards soft boiled eggs, I can't stand having my hair cut any shorter than this, I don't pray every damn three minutes and I'm a stubborn, selfish fellow. You won't find me as agreeable than most people and I like to cuddle early in the morning. Is that really fine?"  
  
Ibarra had to hesitate for a moment before he huffed in a somewhat embarrassed manner when he answered. "There are women for that. Although if you bring a woman over, it'll be the streets for you right away."  
  
"I didn't say I was going to cuddle you."  
  
"I didn't say that either."  
  
The response was so quick that it amused the pilot. See? Utterly distracting.  
  
Silence fell between them but the rest of the world wasn't. There was the bustling of moving men half a kilometer ahead. Elias looked at Ibarra to see if the youth noticed the commotion but Ibarra only sat in silence with his hand stretched out to brush his fingers against the weeds that grew on the lakeside. Elias watched. A stalk seemed to eagerly push against the gentle caress provided by Ibarra's hand, as if it needed comfort from the efforts of its harsh life. The _bangka_ kept moving slowly until it was past the patch of weeds and Ibarra's hand was left hanging in the air. It was then that the pilot knew he had to put down his foot on his decision.  
  
"Sir, you will leave and I will not be going with you. You say you love this country, but only because you were taught by your father to feel so. The Philippines has let you live in comfort and you love her because of this. If you stay here, you will only learn to hate and resent your country. You will not be happy here-"  
  
"Your words pain me. You know just as much as I do the misfortune I had to endure. Pain has ripped me of my blindness and I see the wretchedness  that plagues my countrymen. Not long after I returned from abroad I had poured my best efforts to improve the state of this place, and I still wish to do so. Even now, with nothing left in my hands I still live to do so. Yet you insist that must leave because I cannot be happy."  
  
"I want you to leave because I would sooner drown in this lake than have you curse your fate and your country. You are not someone who deserves a life of suffering. Can't you understand this, sir Ibarra?"  
  
"You are unfair, Elias." Feeling strongly, Ibarra stood on the boat, his once gentle fingers now buried firmly in his fists. "A month ago I might have appeared as such a person to you, but I have changed."  
  
"Shush." The pilot tugged at the others hand to sit him down. There was movement a mere fifty meters ahead as the had drifted closer to land and pass by the palace of the Captain General. By this time Ibarra had stilled.  
  
"They are looking for me." Ibarra said softly, his sudden burst of vigour from earlier having disappeared. Elias vaguely wondered what was going on in the other's head as he rearranged the contents of his boat to make space enough for a man.  
  
"Lie down here, sir. I will cover you with zacate as we pass underneath the gunpowder magazine. For such a small _bangka_ , they will find it suspicious if they saw the two of us."  
  
So Ibarra lay there with his back against the underside of the boat. He could hear the voices of his pilot and the sentinel talking but more than the two of them, Ibarra listened to the sound of lake water sloshing against the boat from beneath him. It was a mesmerizing sound, soft then loud in his ears. In his mind, Ibarra could picture the vastness of the water below him. Beautiful. His Philippines was so beautiful. Damned he was to have to part with her.  
  
Ibarra's thoughts were disrupted when Elias pushed aside the zacate on top of him. The pilot was chuckling in amusement.  
  
"They told me not to take in someone wearing a sack coat and who talks in Spanish when I have him right here."  
  
"So what are you laughing at?"  
  
"I just find it funny that they called you a man wearing a sack coat who speaks in Spanish and not anything else."  
  
"I do speak Spanish." Ibarra replied, somewhat miffed that Elias was not making sense but was apparently making fun of him. "And I am wearing a sack coat."  
  
"Yes, but they didn't call you a handsome man or a brilliant scholar or a rich looking fellow or even an earnest hardworker." The pilot ceased his chuckling and sighed. "I have them all right here. Foolish sentinels."  
  
Ibarra couldn't tell if Elias was insulting or complimenting him, but it seemed that he was cheering him up. "You forgot to mention that I have the charisma that compels the ladies to flock to me."  
  
The pilot only snorted as he continued rowing. They entered the Beata River to make it look as if the boat came from Peñafranca rather than San Diego. Here the river was narrow and the grasses tall. Elias dumped most of his cargo and from beneath the grass, took a package of empty leaf sacks.  
  
"If..."  
  
Elias started, prompting the other to look at him.  
  
"If you return to fan the flames of revolt, I definitely will not follow you, sir. Your methods will hurt those in sin, but you will hurt the innocent a lot more. Hurt and kill and cause them to suffer. I cannot follow a man who will allow the death of his people just to honor the quest of purging this nation. You may have cleansed this country, tidied it up and made it presentable, but when the people who live in it have not earned it, they will soon revert back to they way they are now, for their spirits are weak."  
  
Their eyes met and their gazes were hard against each other, even when viewed under the softening moonlight. Truly, this was an issue that ached them both but Ibarra was not to be stopped.  
  
"You don't have to tell me that." Answered the youth, his hands clasped tightly. "Still, I will go on, even without you."  
  
"You are so stubborn." Elias said under his breath.  
  
They moved out into the Pasig and at some point passed in front of the country home of the Jesuits. They both looked on, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. Ibarra snuck a glance at Elias, but was surprised to find that the pilot was already looking at him.  
  
"I was happy when I lived there."  
  
The pilot simply said, to which Ibarra could only nod in silence. They reached Malapad-na-Bato and when they have reached the lake, they could see a mass of gray coming toward them swiftly. It was apparent that a police boat was after them given the sharp, loud voices of men and their visible aggression, which stood so sorely against the peaceful backdrop of daybreak. Looking forward, they saw that more trouble was coming after them in the form of a second boat.  
  
Swallowing his alarm, the pilot rowed to change their course and saw that the following boat veered in the same direction. With a quick assessment, it was obvious that reaching the shore before the other boats would be impossible and that they would be eating bullets soon even if they did reach land. Elias knew, with the way Ibarra sat frozen in his seat, that the youth was searching in his well exercised brain the escape plan that the situation required, but he turned up empty, for it was Elias who was experienced in such encounters and thus was the one who knew how to react.  
  
But even then, the answer that Elias arrived at was quite the queer one from the seventeen other plans he could have come up with. Without a word, Elias released the oars of his boat and pulled over his head his camisa, exposing the defined muscles on his back, arms and chest. Reaching a hand down to the glass-like mirror that was the lake, he scooped up cold water and splashed a bit of it on his hair which he combed back with his fingers. All the while he was doing this, the other with him on the _bangka_ stared wide eyed, appearing thoroughly confused. Not to mention, absolutely transfixed. The pilot felt like smirking, which he did as he pushed the surprised youth onto his back. Straddling Ibarra's hips, Elias reached for the other's pants to undo them. It was at this point when Ibarra finally started moving again.  
  
"What are you doing?" Ibarra demanded in a rasped whisper, his hands busily pushing off the pilot's persistent ones. "Have you gone mad? Undressing like you're asking to be shot!"  
  
"Just trust me, sir. Don't you want to live like brothers?"  
  
Ibarra paused, giving Elias the advantage of finally undoing his buttons and pulling his trousers off.  
  
"You mean..."  
  
"Yes, I'll be leaving with you. I'd rather give living abroad a try than to let you perform your plans of revenge and cause pain for innumerable people." Elias murmured, lifting the other's bare legs and placing them on his broad shoulders. "I did say I'll be more than a handful, but you'll have to bear with me. I'll do my best to adjust as well. I'll be carrying your name after all."  
  
The other boats drew nearer. The two of them could tell by the sounds of careless strokes made on the water. It took a few moments for Elias' announcement to take meaning for Ibarra but when it dawned on him what the pilot meant, he was overcome with a feeling akin to relief. Relief from having to live his life alone and relief from having to stray from the way he had been following up to now. If he could be the same person he was and continue doing the same, honest things he did, Ibarra would. Now life had forsaken him and he had to resort to evil means. But if Elias were around, perhaps they could think of another way...  
  
"You have legs fairer and paler than a maiden's." Elias observed, pulling the other from his thoughts. Their eyes met as the pilot loftily stroked his rough hands against the youth's thighs, causing the latter's breath to hitch unknowingly.  
  
"W-Wait. This still doesn't make sense." Ibarra had become awfully conscious of himself and was looking at anywhere that wasn't the pilot. "We are in the middle of being chased. Why..."  
  
The youth's complaint was cut short when the pilot started pressing small circles on his inner thighs with his thumbs and was gradually pushing upward until an uncomfortable knot nestled in between Ibarra's hips.  
  
"I forgot to mention. You'll also have to deal with things like these once we start living like brothers." Elias said with a chuckle in his voice. The youth had grown an attractive shade of red from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. "Sir, look at me."  
  
" _Halto!_ Raise your hands and don't move!" Came the shout of one of the policemen whose boat pulled up a few feet beside them. "We are looking for a man named Crisostomo Ibarra. What are you doing out in the water in this hour?!"  
  
With his own face and upper body covered by the empty leaf sacks from earlier, Ibarra watched through the spaces in stiffened silence as Elias slowly did raise his hands and spoke.  
  
"I'm sorry for disturbing the peace, officer. I have rendezvoused with my lover whom I haven't seen in years." Answered the pilot.  
   
There was a momentary pause before the policeman asked another continued with his questions.  
  
"And you have chosen the lake as your meeting place?"  
  
"It was where we first met."  
  
"But... on a boat?"  
  
"She likes it."  
  
The men fell silent in contemplation. The policemen casted looks at the layers of sacks suspiciously. Although the religion they brought was already widespread, there were still some areas in the country where the people did as they pleased. The policemen were aware of this. They appeared to be considering the idea of flinging the sacks aside to reveal the identity of the mentioned lady, bold as she was to bare her legs while still unmarried. But their concern of crossing paths with a genuine pervert drove them to give up the thought. They were in the middle of a hunt, after all. They were tired and sleep deprived from working overnight. The last thing they needed was an unnecessary encounter with non-converted deviants who had nothing better to do other than mate like the animals they were.  
  
"Heathens."  
  
The police muttered the word dismissively under their breaths as they stirred the waters to turn their boats around. Within a few minutes, their figures were nothing more than shadows in the distance. The lake was quiet once again save for the distant singing of morning birds and the shushing of little waves brushing against the bangka.  
  
"God, that was so nerve wracking." Ibarra said with an exhale as he raised his arms to cover his eyes with his palms. "I had every intention to sell my life if the situation ever came to it but I'm glad I didn't have to."  
  
"The act worked because they were convinced I was with a woman. Have you seen the way they glanced at your legs?" Elias was saying, his hands never leaving the bare skin before him. "If those men weren't so tired, I bet they would have asked me to share with them."  
  
Ibarra gave the other a disapproving look. He may have been flustered with the way Elias was touching him earlier but the police were gone now. He'd like to put on his pants again, thank you. "Paws off, you." The youth said, pinching the back of his pilot's hand so he could be released. The warmth that dwelled in his stomach earlier was gone and was replaced by a burning sense of embarrassment. Why had he let Elias do as he wanted again? With a huff, Ibarra sat himself upright and turned in his seat so that his back was to the pilot.  
  
"Row, Elias." The youth ordered, pointing his finger to the shore.  
  
"Don't be so cold, _kuya_." Elias teased, but Ibarra was not going to allow himself to be played any more today.  
  
"You touched my legs. Now row."  
  
The pilot did as he was told. By this time the sun had risen and was already showering upon the land its gift of nourishing warmth. Like rooted lifeforms, the two soaked up the sunlight like it was no other. The clean, sweet morning breeze was like caffeine to the soul. The Philippines, in her purest of state, was a beauty far beyond others. She stirred the desires of men like a maiden, but watched over her children like a mother. There was just no way one could leave her without wanting to come back home.  
  
"Let's return here, Elias. Surely, someday." Ibarra said, looking back at the other over his shoulder. The pilot's answer was given in a heartbeat.  
  
"Definitely, sir. Someday."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Did you see that coming? Did you?! This was supposed to go up on Araw ng Kagitingan but I didn't finish in time so here it is. This fic was written while listening to Tokio Myers' music "Polaroids". Have a wonderful week!


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